yeah I see what ya mean g2d …
...... if your bar spread is only 30" or so and your gunnels are basicaly paralell in that section , then the brackets can't help much with forward / rearward slide , but at least still a big aid in side to side movement .
Our bar spread is long over a pickup and our canoes have a good taper going on where they sit on the brackets , makes a real good lock up , and the straps finish the deal sweetly .
But the brackets do help. When I
haven’t used them, the boat has shown more tendency to slide forward and back. Side to side slip can be stopped with hose clamps, but they don’t stop longitudinal slip.
Get the old style
Get the old style and don’t trim them. In my experience the new style collapse under a hard sideways pressure.
Why not trim them? They are as strong
trimmed as they are untrimmed, and it makes it much easier to load a boat. Trimmed, mine are still 1 1/4" high, and no boat will jump that unless the ropes are totally out of sorts.
The load blockers are essentially the same as my “old” canoe brackets. It took me maybe ten minutes to cut 40% of the excess height off the new brackets, and round them with a rasp.
I’m beginning to think that most people on this board get help to load boats.
Fore-aft movement
I have a Ford ranger with close bar spacing. I try to load boats so one of the bars is at a thwart or seat bar and secure the bar to that inaddition to the belly strap so it can’t move fore or aft.
Turtle
not true. Its seldom that there is
any help around and I am some twenty inches shorter than my bars are. I use a ladder and untrimmed gunwale brackets of the old style.
This was supposed to be in response to g2d's musing of people on the board having help. Laughable. Turtle too is a soloist.
I was talking about people with
Dependent Personality Disorder, not people with Independent Personality Disorder.
And then there’s Short Person Syndrome…